Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I welcome to the Committee Marie O'Shea, the chair of the education trade union group (ETUG) of the Irish National Teachers' Organisation (INTO); Samantha Bronze, the education trade union group representative from UNISON; Sally Rees, the education trade union group representative from the NASUWT; and Janette Murdock, the education trade union group representative from NIPSA. You are all very welcome. If I have got anybody's job title incorrect, feel free to correct me. I will hand over to you to make any opening remarks that you want to make. I ask that they last up to 10 minutes, after which I will bring in Committee members to ask questions. We will try to keep fairly tight to five minutes an enquiry from each member.

Ms Marie O'Shea (Irish National Teachers' Organisation): Thank you very much for the opportunity to be here today. We are part of the education trade union group, which is an umbrella group in the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) that represents teacher unions and support staff unions collectively. We come here with a unique and united voice on education matters and, in particular, on the implementation of the Special Educational Needs (SEN) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2026 and the wider work of SEN provision in Northern Ireland. Janette and I will speak about SEN, Sally will speak about ending violence against women and girls (EVAWG) and Samantha will speak about universal free school meals. We will therefore start with SEN and take it from there.

Across the unions, there is broad support for the principles of inclusion and strengthening the rights of children with SEN, but we argue that implementation has not been matched by adequate funding, staffing, workforce planning or specialist support. In particular, we are concerned that SEN duties have expanded without being adequately resourced. Teacher unions and support staff unions have consistently reported that the statutory SEN obligations have increased significantly, while school funding and staffing levels have failed to keep pace. Schools now support increasing numbers of children with complex needs and higher levels of behavioural and emotional need, and there is growing demand for specialist interventions.

Concerns have been raised that, in the outworkings of the SEN regulations, schools will be expected to deliver enhanced SEN provision without sufficient SEN funding, adequate classroom assistant numbers, timely access to a specialist service and appropriate staffing ratios. Teacher unions in particular report excessive SEN-related paperwork as part of growing workforce pressures, increased administrative burdens, pressure on SEN coordinators (SENCOs) and increased classroom management pressures linked to unsupported need.

There is a lack of specialist support and training. Teacher unions and support staff unions both report insufficient access to educational psychologists, autism specialists, speech and language therapists (SLTs), behavioural support services and specialist SEN training and argue that mainstream schools are increasingly expected to manage highly complex needs without having the multidisciplinary support that is required for safe and effective inclusion.

Regarding delays in assessment and school placement, the implementation of the SEN regulations will put increasing pressure on schools to manage the practical outworkings of such support and to be the primary accounting agent for it. The Education Authority (EA) is abdicating a high level of responsibility. The enhanced support model further adds to the work on essential standards. Schools and staff involved in the practical outworkings of that allocation of provision are unsure of the mechanisms to be used and of how the EA and schools will work collaboratively on that. We wonder whether the challenge with provision based on those standards will be situated in schools or in the EA, because there is too much jeopardy in the system for us at this time.

When it comes to health, safety and well-being, we are concerned that the mechanisms for reporting and recording incidents relating to behaviour, including trauma-related behaviours, violent outbursts and assaults on staff, are not robust enough. No data for teachers is currently held in the system. Teacher unions in particular call for the work of the Teachers' Negotiating Committee (TNC) on preventing violence in the workplace to be progressed as a matter of urgency.

Overall, we say that the successful implementation of the SEN regulations requires sustained investment, stable staffing structures, workforce training, proper recognition of classroom assistants, improved access to specialist services and realistic workload expectations for all school staff. The central concern that teacher and support staff unions have expressed is that the SEN system is increasingly dependent on overstretched school staff, who are attempting to compensate for wider systematic underinvestment and capacity shortages.

I will hand over to my colleague Janette to make some points about support staff.

Ms Janette Murdock (NIPSA): We obviously agree with everything that has been said about SEN transformation, but, for support staff, the issue is with the local impact teams (LITs). There is a fear among support staff that, from being required to have specialist skills, they are now more of a jack of all trades. They are being stretched further, and, as a consequence, their specialism has been lost.

Moreover, in specialist provision in mainstream schools (SPiMS) classes, classroom assistants are being paid the same rate as their counterparts in what would traditionally be called severe learning difficulties (SLD) and moderate learning difficulties (MLD) schools, yet they are dealing with the same types of behaviours — complex behaviours and so on — so they should be at the J3 grade. At the moment, however, classroom assistants at J3 are few and far between, yet that should be their job description.

There are concerns about the time frame for introducing the enhanced support model. The consultation ends shortly, but, between June and September, while staff in the board headquarters are on leave and schools are closed, all the work on it is meant to be progressed. That will not ensure faith in the system. There have been consultation meetings, at which support staff have been very vocal about how they feel and about their expectations. They feel that it is a case of putting the cart before the horse. Having better training, clear pathways, specialist roles appropriately remunerated and new job descriptions is all well and good, but there is no budget. The EA is in deficit. How is all that going to be implemented if there is no budget to make the changes? Support staff are therefore very concerned about the way forward.

I know that it is a three-year plan, so it is not all going to be all-singing, all-dancing in September, but, even at that, the EA reports that it is going to move forward with it for 150 schools that are doing stuff outside the norm at the moment. The trouble with that is that EA has said to the trade union side that it is thinking outside the box. Although some of that thinking is good, there is other thinking that is not so good. We are therefore worried about the staff, who are being asked to work out their job description the enhanced support model has even being brought in. Again, those concerns have been raised.

On the trade union side, support staff are not happy. We are concerned about the hasty, unrealistic timelines, about schools honing the budget for SEN accountability and about the EA's future oversight. We are concerned about how grand plans with no detail are going to be implemented or funded. We are concerned that provision for statemented children will be diluted as the budget is spread across them and children who could use support but who do not have a statement. We are concerned about our members' terms and conditions and about the potential for them to be asked to do work outside of that in their job description.

Ms O'Shea: I will finish on this point. For members of all our unions, this moment is significant, because it allows us an opportunity to demonstrate the power of collective voice, not only within the profession but alongside advocacy groups that work to protect and uphold children's rights. For the wider public, it underscores a simple but vital point, which is that effective education reform cannot happen without those who are at the chalkface, doing the job, being listened to. As discussions on SEN reform continue, the members of the ETUG remain committed to working collaboratively to ensure that any changes that are made lead to genuine improvements to children's outcomes. The unions will continue to advocate strongly for having an education system that is inclusive, properly resourced and capable of meeting the diverse needs of all learners.

Ms Samantha Bronze (UNISON): UNISON's free school meals for all campaign began in 2020. It calls for universal free school meals that are nutritious. Through the campaign, we are looking to challenge poverty, improve health and development and, hopefully, increase the uptake in nutrition, which, ultimately, would increase pupils' concentration, improve behaviour and improve educational outcomes, which is a must. We want the best for our children.

I will quickly speak about what is happening in different parts of the UK and Ireland. In the South, every primary-school pupil is now eligible for a free, hot meal in school. In England, universal free school meals are provided to children in reception, year 1 and year 2. In Scotland, the approach is more universal, with all primary-school children from P1 to P5, as well as any child who goes to a special school, receiving free school meals. Additionally, any child who is eligible for funding in an early learning childcare place can get a free breakfast, lunch or dinner on the days on which they attend. In Wales, all pupils in primary school can now access free school meals.

Although the specifics differ, all those efforts show a shared recognition of the importance of ensuring that children have access to nutritious meals daily. Northern Ireland now stands out as a clear outlier, however, because we do not have that universal provision.

The Welsh Government recently published their first evaluation report on their universal primary free school meals (UPFSM) roll-out. They found:

which:

The Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex has published research on the impacts of free school meals, which evaluated impacts on four local authorities in London of schemes in which free school meals have been made available to children up to the age of 11. The research showed an increased uptake among almost all those already eligible under means testing. It showed that it reduced obesity prevalence, helped households with the cost of living and improved reading test scores. The findings therefore indicate quite high impacts.

There was a consultation that closed in February to which we submitted feedback. We are aware that there was a really good response to that consultation. There are budget constraints everywhere, but we really want to push to get the issue on the agenda so that all pupils on the go can get nutritious, free school meals, whether that is done through taking a phased approach or being introduced universally. That is where we are at.

Ms Sally Rees (NASUWT): You may be familiar with the website everyonesinvited.uk, which is an anonymous platform to which young people and teachers can submit their experience of being sexually assaulted in schools and colleges. In 2025, that included over 50 primary schools in Northern Ireland. The post-primary figures from 2022 stood at more than 100. That is across all sectors.

A recent survey by the NASUWT of over 5,000 teachers exposed that one in four teachers is subjected to misogyny in the classroom, and, as we know, 75% of our workforce is female. That evidence is really borne out by what our women teachers in Northern Ireland are telling us about their experiences. They are experiencing increasing levels of verbal sexual abuse on a daily basis. For example, some pupils have said, "I won't do what 'she' tells me to do", yet they will do what a male teacher says. There is sexually graphic language being used and rage baiting to try to provoke a reaction from female teachers. Female teachers have been physically intimidated by having pupils surround them and block their way. They are trying to assert dominance over those staff. We have had several cases of sexually explicit messages being sent to teachers on Google Classroom or on social media platforms, telling female teachers exactly what they want to do to them, when and where. We have also seen a massive rise in image-based abuse and of TikTok accounts using AI-generated deepfakes. In one case, a teacher's wedding photograph was used.

Girls in our schools are facing similar abuse, with cyber-flashing from the age of 11, pressure to send nudes, victim blaming and shaming of girls, objectification of their bodies and AI-generated pornographic images being circulated. That abuse violates those young women and girls in our schools. It is degrading, but it also creates a sense of fear and paranoia and is a complete breach of trust for everybody in the school environment. When such incidents happen, the common response in schools is that the order of protection is reversed. What happens is that we see the needs of the offender being placed above the needs of the victim. The common response in schools and colleges is to protect the rights of the perpetrator — the offending pupil — to an education, which is driven by a fear of victimising offending pupils that is placed over the rights of women and girls to feel safe and protected in their working and school environment.

Teachers are expected to just get on with it and teach the pupil. Their competency is questioned. One teacher was told, "Maybe this isn't the profession for you". Girls who have been victims of sexual assault by a pupil are then expected to remain in the same class with the person who abused them, which leads to long-term absence, illness and mental health issues. That is not trauma-informed practice. Rather, it compounds the trauma and harm of the original offence and shows a deep-rooted lack of empathy and a lack of understanding of the impact of harmful sexual behaviours. What message does that send to the offending pupil about how they can treat women and girls? What message does that send to the rest of the school community about how they can expect to be treated? Too often, risk and management plans are focused on the risk of the pupil reoffending and not on the risk to the emotional well-being and safety of the person who has been the victim of that abuse.

We are also concerned about the use of restorative practice in those situations and would like to continue to engage with the EA on the production of guidance on when such practice should and should not be used. It is clear that women and girls are at risk in our schools, which is why we believe that misogyny and sexism that leads to sexual harassment and assault needs to be treated as a health and safety issue. It is clear that schools are struggling to know how to deal with such incidents, particularly given the rise of technology-assisted abuse. Making schools a phone-free environment would be a good place to start. We look forward to seeing how the Minister's pilot will be rolled out and to its results. The 2026-28 delivery plan for the ending violence against women and girls strategy clearly states that it will deliver a partnership with the Department of Education and an agreed action plan on ending violence against women and girls to coordinate interventions and training for teachers and young people that is focused on healthy relationships.

Part of that plan needs to be about taking a systemic approach. First, we have to get mandatory relationships and sexuality education (RSE) and consent-focused education delivered in our schools. We need to make sure that it debunks harmful gender stereotypes and includes critical digital literacy so that we are educating our young people about the use and abuse of online platforms and social media. We advocate taking a whole-school approach, as presented by UK Feminista. That approach therefore already exists. UK Feminista has run a very successful pilot project in the UK. We would like to see it rolled out in Northern Ireland. That means establishing an institutional framework that is led from the top, training all school and college staff, not just our teachers, to equip them with the knowledge, resources and confidence to tackle sexism and sexual harassment, supporting our students to learn about sexism and sexual harassment and having a reporting mechanism that supports everybody. We are therefore looking at a protective and preventative piece of work that extends across the entire school environment.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I thank you all for your evidence. I will say a couple of things at the outset. We have a full Committee in attendance. We are already behind on time, so each member will have five minutes. Please, no protests if I bring your enquiry to a close. It is up to you how you use your time. I just want to be clear on that.

So many issues were covered in your presentations that I will not be able to go into detail on all of them. I will pick up on the SEN aspect and start with a really open-ended question about the regulations themselves. Are you concerned about any of the specific regulations, or are your concerns about wider SEN reform?

Ms O'Shea: We have concerns about a couple of elements, in particular the designation of the learning support coordinator, how that role will change and the implications of that for the school side. We also have concerns about the expectation that anyone in that role should have significant experience and qualifications. If one were to survey all the SENCOs who are in post at present, I think that the number of them who have an additional qualification would be very low. I apply a caveat to that by saying that we respect the experience of all SENCOs in schools. It is their experience that allows them to do their job as well as they are doing it at the minute. The system is working against them, however.

Any statutory role brings with it huge responsibility. We want to ensure that that is matched with having the working space for them. We have long fought to have non-teaching SENCOs. If that becomes a reality, and if there are to be greater expectations of them, it will move us a step closer to our needing the school side involved. We have big concerns, which we outlined in both our presentations, about the connections with allied health professionals. That is key to what happens here. If those connections are not there, and if significant groundwork is not done to get people trained in posts that are relevant to an education environment, we are creating expectations of a system. The resources are just not there to match those expectations, however, and that is not fair on children and families or on the schools that are trying to manage everything. Those are two key points to make.

On the how the regulations fit into all of that, everything seems to be mismatched. Operational things are happening in the EA. Things have been expected of schools for a number of years. Those things were put in place with the expectation that the regulations would also be in place, but they were not. There has never been any scrutiny done of whether the regulations are relevant to what we are trying to do. Everything seems to be just continuing to move at pace, however, and that is concerning.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Sequencing the legislative piece and the operational piece is something that we can raise with the EA and the Department of Health. It is clear from everything that we have heard during the Committee's SEN inquiry, and it has become really clear from looking at the regulations, that the connections with the Department of Health need to be right. I do not think that anyone on the Committee has confidence that that relationship is right at the moment. I say that not to impugn the repetition of anybody working in the health sphere. It is resource-driven, and, because the system is spread too thinly, it is a challenge.

I will direct my question on classroom assistants to Janette. Janette, you highlighted some of the workforce challenges, such as the qualifications not matching those of the workforce that is providing support in specialist settings and specialist schools. You also mentioned pay scales not reflecting the nature of duties and job descriptions not being accurate. The EA is clear that it wants to undertake work in that space and do a wholesale review of job descriptions and job evaluations to determine what the appropriate pay points are. Can you give the Committee an insight into the level of engagement that you have had with the EA, specifically where the job description, the role and the terms and conditions of classroom assistants fit into the picture?

Ms Murdock: The enhanced support model indicates career pathways and so on, but there is no meat on the bones, because there is no detail. It is just a statement. When we are at meetings and ask, "Where is the detail?", the response from the EA is, "It wouldn't be appropriate to provide detail before the end of the consultation". If the EA is expecting something to start in September, however, I would like to think that it would already have clear guidance on how it should be rolled out. Absolutely no work has been done on new job descriptions. Even with the current job descriptions, the term-time agreement from 2001 for staff to be made permanent after four years is not being implemented by the EA. Our members — staff in schools — have no confidence that things will get any better, because they are not getting that detail.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I will note that as a concern at this point, because the EA has communicated that that work is live and that there is active engagement taking place with the classroom assistant workforce and trade unions on their role, job description and terms and conditions. If we do not get all that right, we cannot deliver SEN reform, because the classroom assistant workforce is crucial to it. We may therefore pick that up with the EA. In the interests of time, I will leave it there.

Mr Sheehan: Thanks for coming to the Committee today. I will pick up on Nick's previous question. SPiMS was set up on the basis that there were not enough places in special schools. Many of the kids in SPiMS are there because there are not enough places in special schools, yet the pay scale for classroom assistants in mainstream schools differs from that for classroom assistants in special schools. Is that fair, and is it sustainable in the longer term?

Ms Murdock: That is the problem. That is why schools are struggling to get staff in as classroom assistants. There have even been situations in which, we have been told, instead of having a classroom assistant, a someone has been employed to help parents fill in forms, etc. The reason that permission was given for that was because the school could not employ a classroom assistant, so it was able to use its budget elsewhere. It all comes down to the number of hours, the unpredictability of the work and the drop-off when children go into P7. If a classroom assistant is working on a one-to-one basis, they are in a redundancy situation. It is about the terms and conditions and, honestly, about the way in which classroom assistants have been treated for far too many years.

I was a classroom assistant in a special school many years ago, and I worked there for many years. Nothing has changed, however, even though there have been new job descriptions. A lot of people work outside their job description. I am sure that my colleagues will concur that, in a classroom, everybody is hands-on. In some cases, one would be hard pushed to tell who is the teacher and who is the classroom assistant or, in fact, who is the general assistant, who is on the lowest pay and is very much doing the same job as the classroom assistant. For all those reasons, schools are not getting classroom assistants, and it is why they are now in a situation in which they are bringing in people from outside the school gates to be in the classroom. Those people have now gained experience, but we need to get back to a situation in which we have people with qualifications in place so that the job is seen as a professional role.

Mr Sheehan: Danny and I were at an event on classroom assistants recently in the Beechlawn Hotel that was organised by UNISON. The way in which classroom assistants are treated is absolutely disgraceful. The system depends on them. If sustainability is not built into the system, it is going to collapse at some time in the future. I will leave that there.

I want to ask you about the SEN regulations. Sorry, did you want to come in, Samantha?

Ms Bronze: I just wanted to add a wee bit to the answer to your question. Are classroom assistants who are working with SPiMS classes paid fairly? No, they are not. A lot of those pupils needed a space in the local special school. Those classroom assistants are on the additional rate of pay. In a SPiMS class, they are working with pupils with the same complex needs, be those medical, communication or sensory. It is worth drawing attention to the fact that the teaching staff in SPiMS classes are awarded additional points from the interview process. They do not have to go through the same process as classroom assistants have to to push for a higher rate of pay. It is not fair, Pat, that classroom assistants in SPiMS classes are not in an equivalent job role.

Mr Sheehan: Thanks for that. I will turn to the SEN regulations. You may have heard the evidence from the representatives of the Children's Law Centre (CLC) at the Committee last week. I know that the unions signed a letter and released a statement recently. The Children's Law Centre has asked that the process be stalled in order to allow for greater scrutiny of the regulations. Are the unions in agreement with that?

Ms O'Shea: Broadly speaking, yes, given our interaction with the Children's Law Centre, our contact with our membership, the pace at which the process is coming at schools and its complexity, taken alongside TransformED, the curriculum review and the workload issues that exist in the system. There are school principals who are telling us that they do not have time to read what it is about to understand what it is going to be like for their school. I was at one of the consultation events at home in Fermanagh. After the event, I spoke to a principal, who said to me, "I'm as wise now as I was when I went in. I thought this was going to give me a bit of clarity. There are even more questions in my head now". She told me that there were 20 emails in her inbox that she would have to read as well.

The change cannot happen effectively if people do not have time to take a breath and reflect on it. Alongside that, the 150 schools in the proposed pilot have no outworkings of what is good, bad or indifferent, or any way for them to feed into what the change is going to mean and whether the regulations are hitting the right mark. There has been so much change since the regulations were written originally and so much change to what we face now in the real world of classrooms and settings in which schools are operating. I therefore have concerns. The unions will be saying that if there is a mechanism to pause things and take a breath, it should be used. Let us get things right now and not try to undo them down the road, because that is practically impossible to do.

Mr Sheehan: You mentioned workload. The Department has announced £10 million funding for AI. Will that make any difference to the SEN workload in your schools?

Ms O'Shea: They will have to learn to use it before they can tell whether it will be of any benefit for their workload, and that is a workload issue in itself. That is the reality.

Mr Sheehan: Fair enough. Thank you.

Mrs Guy: I will focus on the comments that have been made about assaults on teachers and young people in schools. I am dealing with a couple of cases of that. A young women who was impacted on by that in a school came to me with the objective of guidance. She had sympathy for her school and felt that it was just doing what it thought was right. The school took advice on GDPR, protection of rights and balancing her rights to be at school with the perpetrator's rights to be at school. Ultimately, however, she felt that the process did not work for anybody. If you are progressing anything around guidance on that, I would be very happy to collaborate with you. I had a meeting with the EA last week, and I raised that issue. We are due to have a follow-up meeting. That young women would, I think, also be keen to collaborate with you to make progress on that. What are your thoughts on the balance of rights in that context? The perpetrator came back to the school because he had a right to education, and that young girl would have had to continue to go to school alongside him. However, that impacted on her right to education, because she felt too intimidated and traumatised to go to school as a result. Have you given any thought to how we might reconcile that through guidance? Have you had any discussions with the Department or the EA on that?

Ms Rees: The EA is looking at its equality action plan. That will be part of how it will deal with that. The issue is that there is no clear guidance. There is a lack of understanding of the impact that that has on the victim/survivor. You talked about a pupil. What tends to happen is that that young person is treated as if they have to move to a different class, so they become the one who feels that they have done something wrong. That goes back to the trauma-informed approach and having those conversations with the victim/survivor, whether that be a female teacher or a girl in the school, and asking, "What do you need? How can we support you?".

Yes, it is a very fine balance, because the perpetrator's — the offending pupil's — right to an education has to be supported. However, as I asked in my initial evidence: what message does that send to the offending young person? If the perpetrator returns to the school and sees that they are in the same classroom environment as the person that they harmed, that minimises and normalises their behaviour. There has to be a joined-up approach whereby sanction and consequence are considered along with education and protecting the person who is the victim, whereas she is now the one who is refusing to go to school. The same thing happens when it is a female member of staff: they are the ones who are left feeling that they cannot go into work. There is then rumour, speculation and victim-blaming.

Looking at the bigger picture, it is about how we look at it system-wide. All schools should be saying, "We know that sexism and sexual harassment are big issues. We need to take a deep dive into that" and not be afraid to admit that there is a problem, because we know that there is a problem. The NASUWT has just commissioned joint research with UK Feminista. I am sure that you are aware that UK Feminista has done research in the past that is often cited. We will publish our research with them. We are just starting that journey. We will have a firm basis of evidence across all four nations. That will be a really impactful piece of work. I urge the Committee to look at UK Feminista's whole-school approach, because it sets out a clear institutional framework for how it can be done. All the resources are there. We are stretched for time, money and resources, so we do not need to reinvent the wheel. When we consider a trauma-informed approach, we need to make it properly victim-centred. The current approach is not working for the female teachers or the female pupils. We are hearing the same thing. Unfortunately, not much has changed in the 10 years since it happened to me, and that is very frustrating.

Mrs Guy: Absolutely. There was an incident in a school in my constituency where the teachers felt that they were being intimidated in that way. Can I get your reaction to this? I was approached by parents of young boys in the school who almost felt that their sons, because they were being asked to participate in programmes to try to address the issue, were being targeted. It was almost that they were saying, "How dare you make my son do this training? He's a good boy". What do you say to parents who feel that way about it and about how to better articulate the context to overcome that?

Ms Rees: That is why I recommend that the bystander approach be brought into schools. If we approach this at a systemic level, we will not be just putting in targeted support when it happens. If everybody is already having RSE that is preventative in nature and that focuses on healthy relationships and consent, parents will not think all of a sudden, "You're targeting my boy". Gender stereotypes and this behaviour harm boys and girls; it is not one or the other. We are about education — that is what we are passionate about — so that is what we need to do.

Ms Murdock: My colleague is being inclusive, but it is not just teachers who the attacks are happening to; it is also classroom assistants and support staff.

Ms Hunter: Thank you so much to the panel for being here. You gave a really comprehensive overview of the significant challenges in our education system. You touched on sexual harassment in our schools, which is a much bigger issue than many realise. We had the infamous case of upskirting of a teacher in Northern Ireland. I have a real, profound concern about Meta glasses. I am not sure if you know what those glasses are, but, essentially, they can record. They could record teachers and pupils. They could be used in bathrooms. Have you heard about those glasses? Do you know of any incidents in our schools that we, as a Committee, might not be aware of?

Ms Rees: We have worked very closely with Professor Clare McGlynn. She discusses all of this work. I know that you are aware of her work too, Cara. Yes, we are aware of that. It comes back to the point that Marie made about AI. It is about looking at what the harms of AI are. We need to think about having legislation. Those things exist for one reason only: to abuse, degrade and humiliate. "Nudify" apps and those Google glasses are there to do only that. We will just see a rise in the number of those incidents if we do not work to have legislation to make the tech companies accountable for what they produce.

Ms Hunter: Absolutely. I believe that £885,000 went into creating Safer Schools NI. Do you think that those support mechanisms are sufficient and value for money? Is anything missing that we, as a Committee, should be acting on?

Ms Rees: There is a lack of awareness of the Safer Schools stuff among school staff. The Safer Schools TikTok guidance and the little flow chart around teacher-targeted bullying is really effective, but, every time that it happens in school, I am sending it out to our reps, so I would say that schools are not necessarily buying into Safer Schools NI. You might be aware of the statistics on that. Again, it comes back to having a whole-school approach, having an institutional framework and being able to identify the training gaps. We can then use the resources and organisations that we have to deliver that support. The Safer Schools training is very good. However, I was at a conference in the UK recently, and, when I mentioned Safer Schools NI, only four out of 200 women in the room put their hands up to say that they had heard of it.

Ms Hunter: Wow. There really is a challenge with connecting the dots. Maybe the good resources that are there need to be tweaked a little, but it is about having a public awareness campaign on what is available to the public.

Ms Rees: A lot of brilliant work is going on — a lot of that is done by the community and voluntary sector — but it cannot be a one-hit wonder. I have delivered those workshops in Fermanagh. Going in and doing that is really good, and it is great to have that engagement, but the difficulty is the follow-through. What happens if issues are raised after that? We know that young people can compartmentalise things and say, "Oh, that applied the day that I did the training". They do not necessarily think about how it actually works in their day-to-day lives. It is really important that there is a portal where all of those resources sit. I know that the ending violence against women and girls strategy talks about that, but its being there does not matter if nobody knows about it.

Ms Hunter: Absolutely. You are speaking my language. It speaks a lot to where we are and the gaps that exist, with resources being there but not being utilised. That is extremely helpful.

I submitted a question for written answer to the Minister today on what guidance has been given on Meta glasses, because the situation seems to be fast-moving. I will follow up with you when he answers that question.

Ms Rees: That will be really useful. Clare McGlynn did a presentation on Meta glasses at our equalities conference last year. We can share some of that information with you as well.

Ms Hunter: Brilliant. I would love that. Thank you so much.

Chair, given that we are talking about AI, I declare an interest: outside my role as an MLA, I do a few hours' work a year on AI ethics.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Thank you, Cara. That is great. That will be noted.

Mrs Mason: Sally, thanks very much for that. I am dealing with such a case as well. You mentioned the amount of reported cases, but the number of unreported cases frightens me. In the case that I am dealing with, the person cannot report it, because that would show weakness to the males involved. There is a fear of reporting it and showing a chink and then being even more vulnerable. Thanks for the work that you are doing on that.

Marie, I want to come back to the SEN regs. I was in a meeting last week with about 30 principals, teachers, trade union reps, the EA and DE. Everything that you guys have said here was mentioned in granular detail, because we had classroom assistants, SENCOs and everybody there. The bit that got me was the EA's response, which was almost shock and surprise. It was as if the EA did not realise that this is an issue and that it is happening. What are your thoughts on that?

Ms O'Shea: I am part of the trade union group that sits in consultation — I use that term in the loosest possible way — meetings with the EA. We raise such matters with the EA on an ongoing monthly and quarterly basis. The information is not new to the EA. The EA gets the information in every interaction that it has with anybody who has responsibility for SEN in schools, so it astounds me that it does not hear it. I do not understand how it is not hearing it from its workforce in the LITs that are trying to deliver SEN transformation or from the schools that are struggling to get pupils through the different pathways, given the challenges that there have been with that. I do not know how the EA could sit in a room and give that response to the assembled group, because the evidence was comprehensive, from early years right through that group. People said it consistently.

The EA uses terminology such as "early intervention", but, if you say that to a school leader, they will say, "Yeah, right. What does that actually mean? By the time that pupils get to P6 or P7? That's not early intervention in our book". I have taught at nursery level. From the time that children arrive at nursery we know if there are things that will develop over the next few years, because we have conversations with parents who have had conversations with health visitors. We know that we will have to start making stepping stones and putting scaffolding in place for schools. We hit the wall every time that we need outside agency support. It is only thanks to the tenacity and integrity of the staff in the schools, who push boundaries and their own capabilities as far as they can in seeking out support for those young people, that they are taken as far as they can go. That is where the system, the regulations and the code are letting them down. We cannot allow that to continue.

Mrs Mason: That message was clear last week. The fact that the system has not collapsed is only because of the work of SENCOs, classroom assistants, teachers, school leaders and all the support staff. At that meeting, there was a round of applause for one of the vice principals, who said that they had succeeded in getting a child on to pathway 3. She got a round of applause because no one else had managed to do that. That is ridiculous.

Janette, you picked up on the consultation and mentioned career progression. I hear that, when a person replies to such consultations and reads about "career progression", of course they will agree to that and think that it is a good thing, but there is no detail. The fear is that the feedback will have been so positive that nothing will change. Do you agree? Have you heard that?

Ms Murdock: Absolutely. To be honest, the questionnaire was skewed to produce a positive reaction. Who will disagree with having more facilities for children, bringing children through and having career paths for staff? Who will disagree with all that? There was no way to disagree or to put in the negative points and concerns that are coming through. That is absolutely the big fear, and it has been there over years of trying different things and them just not being followed through on. A pause would possibly give us a chance to do that. Once the consultation is finished and the likely direction can be seen, that is when the pause needs to happen, so that it can have the consultation with the unions that represent staff and get it right from the start. There is a lot of good stuff in it, but it is about getting it right from the start. The piecemeal approach is concerning.

Mrs Mason: When stalling or pausing was mentioned at that meeting last week, the response was, "We can't do that. We can't pause. If we pause, it will all collapse and it will be a disaster". It was as if a fear was instilled in the room that day. It was as if they were saying, "No, we have to trudge on through with this. We have to keep going. You calling for it to be paused or stalled is dangerous". That is what they were trying to say. What do you say to that?

Ms O'Shea: It does not make sense, because everything that we do in education is about monitoring and evaluating our work in the classroom. Why would we not monitor and evaluate at system level? It does not make sense. They are trying to force it through without giving the space for monitoring and evaluation. In what they are suggesting, there is no room to take a step back or sideways.

Mrs Mason: OK. Thank you.

Mr Baker: I will follow on from that. We heard from the Children’s Law Centre last week that some SEN regs are being implemented through the back door. That is already happening, and the Children's Law Centre is really worried about it. My fear is that the Department or the EA — or both — will dig their heels in because there is no plan B. There will be a problem if they try to push on through with it. They are being asked to pause it by those who work in this every single day — yourselves. What if they say, "No, we're not pausing. We're just going to push on through"? The danger of that is the regs getting voted down.

Ms O'Shea: Yes. They create a system that is imbalanced for everybody. We have attempted to pause on the basis of things not being in legislation. The teaching unions put a pause on personal learning plans (PLPs) and told their membership, "You have robust documentation in school. Continue to use that until this is regulation, because who knows what might change in the interim?". It then got to the point, however, that schools were putting in submissions for referrals, and when they did not have the documentation on the right piece of paper, it was sent back to the schools, and there was frustration in schools. Therefore, by a sideways loop, they got it through. More and more schools are complying with the PLP even though it continues not to be statutory. That dilutes the focus that we are trying to have. A lot of the stuff is not workload-proofed. It is not working. If you are saying that one SENCO said that they got a pathway 3 through for the first time, it is not working in that context either.

There is something wrong in it somewhere. They are going to force people's hands in another way if they continue to push this. It is not working for anybody. More and more of our colleagues will walk away from those roles and responsibilities in schools through sheer frustration, having done everything possible to make it work. It is the same for support staff: they just hit their heads against a wall because they can go no further with stuff. That is not good for anybody in the long term. I have concerns about that.

Mr Baker: That is a real fear that I have. I hear every day that people — teachers, support staff and SENCOs — are looking to get out. That expertise is being lost.

Ms O'Shea: Absolutely.

Mr Baker: You have talked about the consultation. There is an awful lot happening in the education system. My fear is that you are so bombarded and flooded that the agenda that they want to get through will get through. I have lost a lot of trust on the direction of travel. I keep an eye on what is happening across the water and the White Papers that are going through there. What are they really trying to do there? They are taking away legal protections. I fear that that is exactly what will happen here as well: more of the onus will be put on schools and school leaders, and the legal protections will be gone.

Ms O'Shea: As school leaders become more familiar with this piece of work, those are the concerns that they have as well. Where there would have been interventions and support from the EA, anything that you read in the enhanced support model seems to dilute that under the auspices of autonomy. However, with autonomy comes responsibility, and consequences if things go wrong.

As I said in my presentation, when the challenge of provision comes, will it come to the door of the school and the SENCO, or will it come to the EA? If the challenge comes to the school, and it approaches the EA, will the EA's response be, "You made that decision, so you have to deal with the consequences of it now"? That is not a fair system for anybody. It is not what people are familiar with or the support that they want and expect to have available to them. Being a school leader is lonely enough, and particularly so when there is challenge. Everybody is trying to do their best every day, and nobody wants to make a decision that will impact negatively. However, when a challenge comes their way, school leaders are very much left out on a limb, and that is difficult. People sign up to take on those roles because they want a better system for the children and to support the families and communities that they work and live in. They meet people in the street, and that can impact how they operate. That goes for everyone in the school community.

Mr Baker: Thank you. It would be remiss of me if I did not take this opportunity to talk about universal free school meals. I believe that it could be achieved in a phased approach, and I will be trying my best on that, perhaps in the next mandate. However, I have a private Member's Bill going through now that aims to end holiday hunger and target children during the holiday periods. I want to plug that Bill and ask for your support for it, while we have you in front of us.

Ms Bronze: You will be aware that we have our ongoing free school meal pledge with MLAs. I know that quite a few MLAs in the room have already signed up to that. It would be very welcome if we could keep that going. We encourage participation.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Never miss an opportunity, Danny [Laughter.]

Mr Burrows: Thank you, all, for your evidence. Sally, your evidence was compelling. Physical assault and sexual harassment are taboo issues that are not being discussed. I stand in solidarity with you. I spoke about that issue in the Assembly yesterday. There have been 2,500 assaults on school staff, and 2,000 of those were on classroom assistants. There are some issues around having the right resource, training and support to deal with children who are dysregulated, but some of it is just non-SEN children who are badly behaved and bullying. I agree entirely that a lot of it is phone-driven. I will make an observation, and then I will ask a question. Our society has got itself into a situation where it almost sees the rights of the victim and the perpetrator as the same, but they are not the same. We should be on the side of the victim when we balance rights, because they are the victim. Thirty women have been murdered in Northern Ireland since 2020. We have an issue with violence against women and girls, and it starts with those attitudes in schools. It is important that we grip the issue.

I do not want to make it party political, but I have a real concern about the move to change the minimum age of criminal responsibility. One Member of the House, Gerry Carroll, wants to change it to 16 years. That would mean that anyone under the age of 16 cannot commit an offence and the police cannot intervene. A broader group wants to change the minimum age of criminal responsibility to 14, with exceptions only for rape, murder, attempted murder and one other crime. Effectively, all the behaviours that you have talked about would not be a crime with any criminal consequences. I am deeply concerned about the behaviours that will arise from that. I asked the Justice Minister whether she had assessed the impact on violence against women and girls, and she said that she had not. Do you have any concerns about increasing the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 10 years to 14 years, which is very likely to go through the House, and the impact that that would have in your schools?

Ms Rees: The broader trade union movement is yet to consider that. We have not come out with a policy position on it. ICTU is ready to discuss the paper. It is the same for NASUWT. I, personally, would have grave concerns, because the pupil who upskirted me was only 14. There was no legal recompense or law to prevent that behaviour until we changed the law. However, it goes further than that. You mentioned that it starts in school, but it does not; it starts at home.

Mr Burrows: I get that.

Ms Rees: We need to educate the parents and carers. We need to make sure that the harms that already happen are not compounded. I would have grave concerns about increasing the minimum age of criminal responsibility. We understand that young people are risk-takers because of the very nature of growing up. However, we have to educate them about what reckless behaviour looks like and the harm that it causes to the person who they perpetrate it against. I am not sure what the thinking is in increasing the minimum age of criminal responsibility. We would need to see how many young people are in the criminal justice system already, and what that move would mean. Think about the acts of violence that are happening in schools. You mentioned the 2,500 assaults. The reason that it is only that number is that policy statement TNC 2011/2 is not being followed. Schools are not reporting incidents of violence across the board to the TNC. As Cara mentioned, we tend to view non-touch-based, technology-assisted abuse as not being acts of violence. Before we start talking about how we legislate, or what we do with the minimum age of criminal responsibility, we need to backtrack and start with education, so that people know how to treat others with respect and equality.

Mr Burrows: I was in law enforcement for a long time. Very few children are actually prosecuted, but the police can intervene, seize phones and investigate, and there is the sense that what has been done is a crime. It is a matter of fact that, if that legislation goes through in this mandate — I suspect that it will, given the current voting — upskirting and downblousing by someone who is 13 and a half will not be a crime. If they punch a teacher and break their nose, that will not be a crime; the police will say that that person has not committed a crime. It has not been well thought through. That is a problem for Education as well as —. Danny is shaking his head, but —

Mr Baker: You are talking nonsense.

Mr Burrows: — that is a fact. It is not nonsense.

Mr Baker: It is nonsense.

Mr Burrows: I am really worried about that and the long-term impact that it will have.

I have asked the Education Minister about injury reduction plans. If we were in a different public-sector organisation — for example, the Prison Service — and there was a high level of assaults, a strategy to reduce injuries would be developed. The Minister has not committed to one. Do you think that it would be useful to have an injury reduction strategy document that states, "Here's what we're doing to reduce the number of injuries, harassment and intimidation"?

Ms Rees: Very much so. If you look at what is laid out in TNC 2011/2 and the framework that is being finalised today, which will go out to all EA-controlled schools and those controlled by the Council for Catholic Maintained School (CCMS), you will see that the issue is that that policy and framework does not apply across the board, including to our support staff colleagues. All schools should have those risk assessments in place to reduce injury, but you cannot do that if it is not being reported. We know that, if it is not reported and recorded, it is not managed. That is the situation that we are in and trying to rectify. We need to ensure that all assaults, and not just physical violence, are covered.

Mr Burrows: Then you have a benchmark.

Ms Rees: Yes.

Mr Burrows: Thank you.

Mr Brooks: I have received lots of useful information today. I often say that I am not going to ask questions, but I want to touch on one issue. We sort of skirted over — no pun intended — phones in schools, and how much of a driver phones are of that kind of behaviour in schools. How prevalent, in your experience, is that? How would having phone-free schools improve the environment for teaching staff and classroom assistants?

Ms Rees: A range of research has been done on the impact that phone-free schools have not just in reducing the incidence of abuse of teachers but in improving engagement and concentration. It is beneficial for young people to be enabled to have that break. We already see the influence of their access to social media, and how that plays out in the things that they do in school. Recording was mentioned earlier. Teachers are already being recorded. Images are being taken. They may not be sexual in nature originally, but they are being used for AI generation. We also know that it is very difficult for any of us to post images of children on the internet for school-promoting activities, because those images are being manipulated into pornographic situations. We need to go back to this question: why does a child need access to their phone at school?

A lot of schools have a "not seen, not heard" policy. I have been in schools where, when young people are going to the toilet, the teacher has said, "Give me your phone". It is about getting the parents on side as well, because a lot of parents want their children to have a phone. I come from a rural environment and know that parents are worried about their children getting home and all those safety concerns.

It is quite complex, but, if we had a system in which we said, "You are not using your phone in school, and these are the protocols that we will put in place", the difficulty is that, if you introduce a ban on phones with no mechanism for that, teachers will end up policing that, and that can lead to more conflict and more difficulties with behaviour. It has to be thought out; it cannot just be an outright ban on phones in school. It is about how that is managed on the ground. We maybe need to look at where that is going well in schools and what it is about the culture in that school that means that it is doing that effectively. I definitely think that access to phones and how they are being used is very much at the centre of abusing not just teachers but pupils and the bullying that goes on. They cannot switch off and cannot concentrate because they are constantly thinking about what is going on on social media or their phones.

Mr Brooks: I am not trying to make a party political point here, but, notwithstanding the discussion about costs and the debate about everything in the education system around that, do you think that the pouch pilot that is being run is a possible solution to that that balances the need for some pupils to have access to a phone but keeps it locked away? I know that there are workarounds and things like that.

Ms Rees: I would want to see how successful that has been when it comes to day-to-day management. We have already referenced the fact that teacher workload is at an all-time high. We do not want to add another burden of policing phone use and how that system works.

Mr Brooks: Do they not already have that role?

Ms Rees: Yes.

Mr Brooks: It is almost a tool that tries to remove that. From what I have seen of it, you have the lockers at the school gates, and you can only unlock it as you are leaving the school premises. Obviously, there will always be some element of people breaking the rules, I guess. It is there at the moment.

Ms Rees: From what I have heard from some staff in schools, there are issues with how effective the technology is and how easy it is to get round. As you say, all young people will find workarounds, so we need to see the evidence of how effective that has been and the cost implications. We are already crippled with cost implications, so why do we need to introduce a pouch to say, "You are not allowed to use your phone in school"? Again, you have to give a rule that should be followed because that is the rule of the school, as opposed to you have to put your phone in a pouch because that is the only way that we can control access. It is a lack of responsibility.

Mr Brooks: It is trying to find an imperfect solution. It is about exactly what you said: how do you have a deterrent in that way that does not require the teacher to always be the policeman?

Ms O'Shea: I can add to that. While this is predominantly a post-primary issue, it is creeping into the primary schools too. The pilots have been in the post-primaries, but significant issues are starting to creep into the primary sector as well.

Mr Brooks: I wanted a mobile phone when I was leaving primary school.

Ms O'Shea: It is amazing how many get them at a certain point — in P4 or P5.

Mr Brooks: The difference is that I was playing Snake; it is now a PC in your pocket.

Ms Rees: There is a lot of pressure on parents to provide that smartphone technology, and there is a cost implication for them as well.

Mr Brooks: Certainly. I agree.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): For the record, I most definitely did not have phone when I was leaving primary school. That possibly dates me. I must have easily a good decade on you, David.

Mrs Middleton: Panel members, thank you very much for being here and for all the information that you have shared. I will touch on the same point that David made, but my interest is in primary-school pupils. How big is the issue? Do we have data? Is violence as prevalent in primary schools, is it getting there or is it much less?

Ms O'Shea: It is an increasing issue in primary schools. From P4 onwards, there is that call to have a phone. I often had quite a collection of phones in the top drawer of my desk when they were discovered, and they were put in an envelope and handed back. A phone call had to be made home to say, "We found this phone in school and are just letting you know that it is in their bag". As Sally said, there is that added policing element. It is like anything. When young people, regardless of age, are in those transition points of life such as leaving primary school and moving to post-primary, you start to see an escalation of other behaviours that would not have been prevalent until that point. I do not know that there is anything measurable or any data collected on it, but, anecdotally, hearing about it from colleagues, it is becoming an increasing issue.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): That is everybody.

I want to raise a point in relation to some of the comments that Jon made. I am conscious that we are in the Education Committee, not the Justice Committee. On lowering the age of criminal responsibility, there is undoubtedly a balance to be struck between throwing the book at a young person and making sure that you can deliver an intervention that addresses the behaviour so that it does not repeat. There is a lot of good international evidence that, when the age of criminal responsibility is higher, youth offending rates reduce. I have heard some of Jon's former colleagues in the PSNI express views similar to that. However, we are in the Education Committee.

I really appreciate the evidence. A huge amount of ground was covered there. I was very conscious that we had to keep an extremely tight watch on time — we are still over time — so I apologise to anybody who felt that they were not fully able to address all the issues that were raised.

I am happy to conclude the session there, unless there are any specific items of follow-up that anyone — the Clerk or members — wants to suggest.

Mr Baker: I will come in afterwards.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): That is fine. Are there any specific items of follow-up? No. We will certainly note some of the evidence in relation to the regulations.